Lessons Learned 
from Nature 


By 
FRED HIGH 


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Lessons Taught by Nature 


Copyright, 1919, by Fred High. 


Why the Owl Is the Symbol of Wisdom 


Owls live on rats, mice, beetles, shrews, gophers 
and other undesirable settlers in the field. Uncle 
Sam’s experts have figured that rats eat up annually 
$1,000,000,000 worth of food; they keep 50,000 
farmers occupied feeding them; 50,000 laborers and 
mechanics are busy repairing the damages done by 
them; an army of doctors are trying to kill the deadly 
germs spread broadcast by them; they have twice 
brought the bubonic plague to our shores from India 
where 2,000,000 men, women and children died in 
1907 from this dread scourge; there are 200,000,000 
rats in the United States; there are less than 2,000,- 
000 owls; rats breed once a month and have ten toa 
litter; an owl lays from two to four eggs each year; 
owls live in barns, sheds, and the woods; rats have 
followed man everywhere—that is why we feed the 
rats and shoot the owls. 


Learning 
from the 
Birds 


THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF BIRD LIFE. 


This is a practical age, and the questions that natur- 
ally come to our minds are: Does it pay? Why all 
this fuss about birds? Wouldn’t it be time more prof- 
itably spent if we were to study how to better serve 
humanity? These are fair questions. 

Those who ask them seem utterly oblivious of the 
fact that the birds are man’s untiring employees as well 
as being counted among his true friends and unsur- 
passed entertainers. The farm, the orchard, the gar- 
den, and the vines and shade trees are their natural 
habitat. Their speech is a song. Their food is the 
pests, germ-breeding and deadly insects, which are the 
natural enemies of man. 

We religiously study about the plagues of Egypt 
which Pharaoh encountered thousands of years ago, 
quite forgetful of the fact that in one year the birds of 
Massachusetts alone consumed 21,000 bushels of insects. 

The Government bulletins show that the farmers and 
fruit growers are losing $1,000,000,000 a year by reason 
of the havoc wrought by the insects which the birds 
formerly destroyed. Ninety per cent of these little 
feathered friends have been ruthlessly destroyed by us, 
and now we are paying for this folly just when we can 
least afford to do it. 

The cotton growers are losing $100,000,000 a year 
through the ravages of the boll weevil. They have not 

1 


yet learned that quail, pheasants, and prairie chickens 
are worth $100,000,000 a year to them as protectors of 
their cotton crops, so they shoot these invaluable little 
workers and call it sport. In the meantime the world 
suffers for the want of cotton. 


The chinch bug is now able to destroy $100,000,000 
worth of grain because we have allowed this eternal 
pest to join hands with our old-time enemy, the Hessian 
fly, who destroys $200,000,000 more of the grain grow- 
ers’ crops because it’s such great sport to kill quail. 


At this time when we are asked to save grains of 
wheat, and ounces of fat, and when we must ourselves 
go without the staff of life in order that we may win the 
war, it does seem strange that we should deal in such 
great figures as the Government has set before us and 
be told that these represent our annual loss because 
we have destroyed the birds. } 


White Crested Black Polish Hen Which Shed Her Black Feathers 
for White Ones. A Freak of Nature. 


2 


The Pet Hen. 


The following short biography sets forth a few of the 
incidents taken from the life of a busy member of a little 
family of eight White Crested Black Polish chickens, 
most of whom furnished the writer food for thought long 
after they ceased to furnish the rest of the family food for 
the table. The picture shown here was the last of the 
interesting little family to leave us. In her young days 
she was really a prize winner at a poultry show, but that 
was ten years before her picture was taken. At that time 
she was feathered in solid black except her topknot, 
which was solid white, but ten years makes a difference 
in a hen’s life. This particular hen lived to be twelve 
years of age. She was the last of a flock of eight, most 
of which died natural deaths. During the winter of 
1917-8 she spent almost three months of her time warm- 
ing herself by the kitchen stove. She was as well house 
broken as any cat or dog that you ever saw. She knew 
each member of the family as well by sight (and appar- 
ently by name) as a parrot does. She kept religiously 
in her small box unless given the freedom of the house Ly 
a member of the family. In a home where there are chil- 
dren eating is necessarily an irregular event. But ths 
hen thought it was her Christian duty to partake of 
food every time any member of the family did. Four 
years ago she began to shed in a few white feathers and 
at the time of her premature death she was, as shown 
in this picture, two thirds white. Was it that she turned 
gray or why did she change her black feathers for white 
ones? She weighed five pounds the first time she was 
entered at the chicken show and at the time this pic- 
ture was taken she weighed two pounds and one ounce. 
I could write a book on the human traits of that hen. 
The chanticleer who headed this pen was literally hen 
pecked most of the time for he would stand and let the 


3 


other members. of his family pluck the feathers from 
his top-knot as a mere pastime. She ceased to lay eggs 
three years before she died. If we ever erect a monument 
over her grave we shall probably have inscribed on it 
this epitaph: ‘During the Twelve Years that She was 
with Us She Taught Us Many Valuable Lessons about 
Life.” 


It was only a few years ago that the American hen 
was looked upon as a sort of consort for the farmer’s 
wife. Eggs furnished the pin money for the women- 
folk. But today the chicken business totals more than 
$650,000,000 annually. Eggs have gone up from two 
cents for a baker’s dozen of thirteen to one dollar for 
twelve. The latter price, even before eggs, like aero- 
planes, soared into the clouds, was often paid for se- 
lected eggs for the specially select trade. $50 for set- 
ting purposes is not unusual, while a single hen is. 
worth as much as a farm in Texas, and a married one, 
together with her family, often costs more than a city 
residence. Samona County, California, alone, has 
recently produced 10,000,000 eggs in a year. 


Birds work for us so faithfully that every time a hen 
cackles or a rooster crows over the fact that the chickens 
of America produce $650,000,000 of wealth a year, our 
little feathered friends twitter tee-he and sing of their 
glorious work, accompanied by nature’s symphony 
orchestra, for they have added such untold wealth that 
it is impossible to compute it. In fact it is estimated 
that if it were not for the birds that within fifteen years 
human life would be impossible upon the earth. These 
blessings are brought to us without effort on our part. 
In fact they have been brought to us in spite of our 
actions. It is time that we give intelligent thought to 
the welfare of these, our own best friends. 


4 


What is the first lesson that the baby bird learns? 
What to eat. The parents of these little, helpless crea- 
tures must provide for them or they starve. 

The problem of procuring food to eat has ever been 
the first great problem of both individuals and nations. 
We in America are prosperous becausé we are the 
first great nation that can be said to be well fed. Our 
broad fields, which pour millions of bushels of wheat, 
corn, oats, rye, and barley into the great maw of a 
hungry world, are the foundation upon which our na- 
tional prosperity is built. Our fertile wheat and corn 
fields build our cities, run the factories, educate the 
people, create prosperity, and feed many in the nations 
across the seas. 

Egypt had extensive wheat fields, but the Egyptians 
had only the crude way to harvest their grain, and it 
was learned by hard experience that farmers could 
only use what they could harvest, and so nations went 
hungry because they couldn’t harvest enough to eat. 
They spent their time in search of food. 


A New Story. 

The Bible story of Joseph is one that every boy and 
girl ought to read. Joseph was sold by his brothers 
to some travelers who took him to Egypt, where, from 
the poor, hungry, half-starved victim of pride and 


+ 
5 


prejudice, he arose to the highest place, next to the 
king, and saved the Egyptians from starvation by 
storing away for the lean years a goodly portion of 
the grain that was raised in the seven years of plenty. 


. Why the Eskimos Suffer. : 

The Eskimos have never learned to store up during 
the long day when the game is plentiful, so that they 
will not suffer when the long winter night comes on 
when it is dark for one hundred and eighteen days. In 
describing the actions of these primitive people as the sun 
sets, Dr. Frederick A. Cook says :. 

“Just prior to the falling of darkness, with that in- 
stinctive and forced hilarity with which aboriginal be- 
ings seek to ward off impending calamity, the Eskimos 
engaged in their annual sporting event. It is a curious 
sight, indeed, to behold a number of excited, laughing 
Eskimos gathering about two champion dogs which are 
to fight. | 

“After the forced enthusiasm of a brief period of 
excitement, the Eskimos begin to succumb te the in- 
evitable melancholia of nature, when the sun, the 
source of natural life, disappears and darkness de- 
‘scends. A gloom descends heavily on their spirits. A 
subtle sadness tinctures their life, and they are pos- 
sessed by an impulse to weep. At this season, hour by 
hour, the darkness thickens; the cold increases and 
chills their igloos; the wind, exultant while the sun 
shines, now whines and sobs dolorously—there is some- 
thing gruesome, uncanny, supernatural, in its siren sor- 
row. Outside, the snow falls, the sea closes. Its 
clamant beat of waves is silent. Sea animals mostly 
disappear; land animals arerare. Their source of phys- 
ical supply vanished, the Eskimos unconsciously feel 
the grim hand of want, of starvation, which means 

i) 


death, upon them. The psychology of this period of 
depression partly lies, undoubtedly, in this instinctive 
dread of death from lack of food and the natural depres- 
sion of unrelieved gloom. As the last rim of the sun 
sank over the southern ice, the natives entered upon a 
formal period of melancholy, during which the bereave- 
ments of each family, and the discomforts and disasters 
of the year, were memorialized.” 

Civilized man has learned to store up food when it 
is plentiful, so that he may have an abundance when 
nature fails to produce. Individuals have to solve this 
food problem, just as the ancients solved it, just as the 
birds and animals solve it. The birds teach their young 
how to procure food. 


A Lesson We Haven't Learned. 

But we haven’t learned to protect our food from our 
enemies, as the following facts, taken from the lecture 
of Col. G. O. Shields, president of the League of Amer- 
ican Sportsmen and Editor of Shields’ Magazine, will 
show: 


“Scientists have determined by careful computation, study 
and investigation that the farmers and fruit growers over this 
country are losing over $1,000,000,000 a year by reason of the 
reckless and senseless destruction of birds during the past thirty 
years. 


“The cotton growers of the South are suffering a loss of 
$100,000,000 a year by reason of the ravages of the boll weevil, 
an insect that bores into the cotton stalk and kills it. Why? 
Because the quails, prairie chickens, meadow larks and other 
birds, which were formerly there in millions, have been swept 


Mrs. Blue Jay and I have to hunt one 
million insect eggs for our food during 
the winter, then when summer comes, we 
have to catch five thousand caterpillars 
for our little ones to eat. 


q 


away by thoughtless, reckless men and boys. Scientific men 
announce that there is no way on earth by which these insects 
can be destroyed except for the people to stop the killing of 
birds, absolutely and at all times, and let them come back and 
take care of the insects. 


“The grain growers are losing over $100,000,000 a year on 
account of the work of the chinch bug. They are losing an- 
other $200,000,000 a year on account of the work of the Hes- 
sian fly. Both of these are very small insects, almost micro- 
scopic in size. It takes 24,000 chinch bugs to weigh an ounce, 
and nearly 50,000 Hessian flies to weigh an ounce. A quail 
killed in a wheat field in Ohio and examined by a government 
expert, had in its craw the remains of over 2,000 Hessian flies 
that it had eaten that day.” 


A Long Journey. 


The next question with our fathered friends is 
where to find their food. ‘The little children often 
wonder why father goes away to work, some to the 
fields, others to the mountains, still others to the cities; 
some have to travel about from place to place in search 
of a chance to earn their living. 

There is no tribe, race or nation which has to travel 
as far as the birds in order to earn a living. Many of 
our dooryard friends migrate in the fall and spring, 
but few of us ever realize how far some of them really 
have to fly to get from one land of plenty to another. 

The golden plover probably travels over a greater 
territory than any other living creature. They nest 
along the arctic coast of North America, and as soon 
as their young are old enough to care for themselves 
fall migration is begun by a trip to the Labrador coast, 
where the plover fattens for several weeks on the 
abundant native fruits. A short trip across the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence brings them to Nova Scotia, the start- 
ing point for their extraordinary ocean flight, due south 
to the coast of South America. a3 


8 


The golden plover takes a straight course south, 
flying high above the ocean, and, if the weather is 
propitious, makes the whole 2,400 miles’ flight without 
a pause or rest. If the weather is bad, they may make 
two or three emergency stop-overs. Having accom- 
plished their ocean voyage, they pass across eastern 
South America to their winter home in Argentina. 


After six months of activity there, they start back 
to the Arctic by an entirely different route. They cross 
South America and the Gulf of Mexico, reaching the 
United States along the coast of Louisiana and Texas. 
They move up the Mississippi Valley, and by early 
June are again at their nesting site on the Arctic, 
having made a round trip of more than 22,000 miles. 


These long journeys have all been made necessary 
because the golden plovers have never learned to save 
and store their food and to build homes to protect them 
from the storm. 


“A squirrel and two nuts,” being a kodak picture taken in the 
“Chicago Jungles” at Jackson Park. See the puzzled look on the 
visage of “Bob” Morningstar as he watches Ye Editor focus (on 
the squirrel). In the meantime A. L. Flude “snapped” and here 
ts the result. 


9 


An Intelligent Animal. 

The squirrel is one of the most intelligent animals 
for its size that one can find. It has learned to store 
up nuts when they are plentiful so that it can feast 
when the stormy days of winter come upon the world. 


The flying squirrel hibernates during the winter— 
just sleeps. It is stupid as compared with the squirrel, 
and for all practical purposes it might as well cut the 
winters out of its life as to be asleep under the ground 
and practically dead to the world. 


Monkeys With Fire. 

We have learned to use heat to keep us warm, there- 
by turning winter into summer. We have invented 
electric lights and other forms of illumination whereby 
we have turned night into day. Monkeys, apes, and 
gorillas in the African jungles, we are told, will hover - 
around a camp fire and seem to get as much comfort 
from the warm blaze as human beings are able to de- 
rive, but Mr. Monkey does not know enough to put 
wood on the fire to keep it burning. That’s a lesson 
many people never learn. 

. But we ought not to be too severe on ine birds, for 
we have over a million men in America whom we call 
tramps, hobos, who travel like the birds and suffer all 
the hardships of cold, hunger, and privation, because 
they refuse to labor, and save, that they may honestly 
consume. Idleness is only the minor wrong caused by 
tramps. They are an actual burden to the workers of 
America, for it costs about $125,000,000 annually to 
feed them. 

The smartest animal that lives in proportion to its 
size is the ant. Darwin says: “The female coccus, 
while young, attaches itself by its proboscis to a plant; 
sucks the sap, but never moves again; is fertilized and 


10 


lays eggs; and this is its whole history. On the other 
hand, to describe the habits and mental powers of a 
female ant would require, as Pierre Huber has shown. 
a large volume; I may, however, briefly specify a few 
points. Ants communicate information to each other, 
and several unite for the same work or games of play. 
They recognize their fellow ants after months of ab- 
sence. They build great edifices, keep them clean, 
close their doors in the evening, and post sentries. 
They make roads and even tunnels under rivers. They 
collect food for the community, and when an object 
too large for entrance is brought to the nest, they en- 
large the doors, and afterwards build them up again. 
They go out to battle in regular bands, and freely sacri- 
fice their lives for the common weal. They emigrate in 
accordance with a preconcerted plan. They capture 
slaves. They keep aphids as milch cows. They move 
the eggs of the aphids as well as their own eggs and 
cocoons, into warm parts of the nest, in order that they 
may be quickly hatched; and endless similar facts could 
be given. On the whole, the difference in mental power 
between an ant and a coccus is immense; yet no one 
has ever dreamed of placing them in distinct classes, 
much less in distinct kingdoms. 


Size and Intelligence. 


“Tn comparison to its size, the ant is the most intelli- 
gent of all living creatures, and by the same compari- 
son it is the longest lived. Sir John Lubbock kept a 
queen ant for fourteen years and he did not know how 
old she was when he got her. If men lived as long for 
their size we would have some of the inhabitants of 
ancient Babylon and Egypt living among us as young 
men.” , 

George Washington is called the father of our coun: 


11 


try, and certainly he earned the right of our love and 
admiration by his life of usefulness and unselfish acts 
in both times of war and times of peace. In one of his 
great state papers he has given us this splendid advice: 
“Economy makes happy homes and sound nations. In- 
still it deep.” 

Economy is the first law of self-preservation that we 
must learn. Parents have to teach the children not to 
eat too much. The mother bird sees little mouths 
eagerly crowding each other to one side every time 
she comes near her nest. Overeating has killed more 
people than starvation. 


The Spenders. 


After economy in what we eat, perhaps, comes 
economy in what we spend. In former days when most 
of us were young the candy store got our pennies— 
toys and playthings separated us from our nickels and 
dimes. But such is not the general practice today, for 
wise, far-sighted bankers now teach even the children 
how to save. Saving children mean frugal citizens, and 
frugal citizens mean more money in the banks. The 
misers are disappearing and the money shavers and 
hair splitters are not the leaders of finance that they 
were in the days of yore. Even the public schools are 
teaching the children the art of saving. Parents are 
educating their children to the business practices that 
give them that sense of security and faith in the future 


12 


that comes to those who learn to eat and wear less 
than they produce. 

School children in sixty-four Chicago schools saved 
$36,389.20 during twenty months. The school sav- 
ings bank system has been brought to a higher stage of 
development in Chicago than in any other city in the 
country. Mr. Joseph R. Noel, vice-president for TIIli- 
nois branch of the savings bank section of the Ameri- 
can Bankers’ Association, at a recent meeting of the 
school management committee of the board of educa- 
tion, asked the board to take over the work which has 
been done under the auspices of the bankers’ organiza- 
tion. 

The children have withdrawn for their own purposes 
$13,963.16. As soon as they have saved $5 in the school 
banks, they open a personal savings account in a local 
bank. They have transferred $15,061 from the school 
banks to regular banks in this way. 


The Reapers. 


The Bible teaches us that we will always reap exactly 
the things that we sow. We all know that that is true 
in plant life but how many understand that it is as true 
of our own life, our thinking, our actions as it is of the 
life of wheat, corn, trees, vegetables or anything like 
that? 

Let’s take one of America’s greatest business organiza- 
tions and study it. During the Liberty Loan Drives, 
the Red Cross and War Works Activities the writer 
was piivileged to visit more than a hundred industrial 
establishments, factories, shops, stores and plants as 
a representative of the Speakers Bureau. We had the 
pleasure of talking to men and women of many races, 
colors and creeds. It was a wonderful experience. Now 
that it is all over and we have had time to think of all 


13 


that we saw and did there is one system or great indus- 
trial organization where we found conditions approached 
the living realization of the gospel as preached by the 
Great Teacher. The International Harvester Company, 
The Deering Works, and The Tractor Plant all seemed 
to be permeated with the same purpose, the workmen, 
the foremen, the office force all seemed to be imbued 
with the same spirit—that was how can we serve best 
at this time. | 

These great industrial organizations are practicing 
the great ideals of real religion. At the Harvester Works 
we ate lunch at the plant, and at the same table, with 
our little party, were men nationally known as factors 
in the industrial world, the General Superintendent, 
mechanics in overalls, the office clerks, some of the cheap 
help and Miss Myrna Sharlow of the Chicago Grand 
Opera Company—one big happy family at a common 
family table. That’s democracy. 


Noon Hour Forum Where Two Thousand Employees Gathered for 
a Sort of Industrial Patriotic Chautauqua Program. 


1¢ 


Why was this good feeling so prevalent? The Har- 
vester emancipated millions of farmers from the slavery 
of farm drudgery, a service to mankind which will grow 
in importance as the ages pass. We have all talked about 
how Food Won the War until it is a common story. 
We are even now talking about how Food Will Save the 
World. What kind of food? How did it come that we, 
of all the nations of the earth, are the one that was and 
still is the favored one, able to supply this great world 
with Food? The answer is found in the fact that we are 
the greatest Nation on earth when it comes to the use 
of machinery as a means of multiplying the efforts of 
men and women. One farmer. can do as. much now asa 
hundred did in the days of old. This has given men 
time to think. The tractor is doing’’as much to take 
cruelty out of the lives of men. and women and to make 
them more kind to horses and all animals as the reaper 
did to dignify the work on the farm. All of this tends 
to elevate the work of feeding the world. Each year 
the farmers of America are more and more becoming 
men of means, culture, independence, and power. These 
blessings are being reaped because the very spirit of this 
modern elevating influence is being sown by some one. 
It is not a mere happening. 

These great industrial plants with millions of dollars 
invested and many thousands of men and women en- 
gaged in the work of producing these great machines 
have all been built around that one principle of better 
serving the world and relieving the burdens of hu- 
manity. It’s worth while. 

As a moral and spiritual factor in the elevation of the 
human race these great industrial institutions are doing 
a wonderful work, fer as we take the drudgery and _ in- 
human tasks from the animals, we are enlarging the 
opportunities for mental and moral growth of our own 


race, 
15 . 


The reaping-hook, the cycle, the sythe, the harves- 
ter, all helped to produce more grain, and thereby set 
two-thirds of the people free from the land where they 
had to labor to produce enough to eat, but even this 
freedom didn’t give us time to read and think and play 
and travel. It is only those nations who learn to econo- 
mize who have reaped the blessings that inventions and 
progress have to bestow upon the human race. 

The world’s desperately poor are as poor today as 
they were in the days when the rulers of Egypt built 
the great pyramids with slave labor. 


It’s a Woman’s Problem. 


Parents ought to realize that the boys will be better 
men and enjoy greater opportunities if they will only 
learn the value of money, and start to save some of their 
earnings: while they are growing up. What we say of 
boys is equally true of girls, for they are learning the 
lessons that at one time were for boys only. 

It has been only a few hundred years since the men 
thought that the women were not human, and even the 
Christian church taught that a woman didn’t have a 
soul. Women are everywhere taking their places right 
along side of the men, and are assuming the responsi- 
bilities that this new freedom brings. The Civil War 
forced open the school doors to the lady teacher, the 
typewriter forced her into the offices and gave her the 
first insight into practical business. The world war has 
taken her into every shop, factory, trade, calling and 
avocation where man has before worked. The world 
is now struggling with the problem of readjusting its 
business, its politics, its thought so gs to meet the new 
demands of the women of the world. 

Mr. Lee Francis Lybarger has written a great book 
on the tariff. He has delivered hundreds of chautauqua 


° 16 


and lyceum lectures on this great question over which 
politicians have wrangled for centuries, and at each 
lecture he has the audience ask questions and he says 
that the women ask more practical questions than the 
men. But why shouldn’t they? Women are the buy- 
ers. They have to spend the money, for they are doing 
the buying for the home; they pay the bills. 


Women Advance a Step. 

The increasing place that woman is holding in pro- 
fessional life accounts in part for the large number of 
bank depositors and customers among women. When 
a woman is engaged in a gainful occupation, earning 
and spending her own money, she realizes the safety 
and the many other benefits of a good banking connec- 
tion. She saves her money through a savings account 
and she pays her bills by check. 

Woman’s mother instinct goes a step further. She 
teaches the little ones how to save. The toy bank was 
a blessing; it was a mother’s far-sighted contribution 
to the children’s future power and usefulness. Chil- 
dren should be taught the use of a check book. They 
should save their money, so that when they want to 
purchase something they may do it in a way that 


Policemen of the Atr. 


Mrs. Frances G. Simmons, of Kenosha, Wis., writes: ‘' I have 
nine of these Martin houses in our orchard, every.one of them was 
packed to the limit with. martins this past summer. They were a 
wonderful sight and a great joy to us.”’ 


17 


strengthens their mind and heart in those higher prac- 
tices that make for real character. They should early 
in life be taught the use of a check book. The use of 
check books, 4 cash register, and such devices have 
done wonde o make us accurate, and accuracy means 
honesty. 


A Check on Dishonesty. 


Before the introduction of the baggage check, travel- 
ing was as hazardous as sailing the seas in the days 
when the old pirates were masters, for it was a case of 
grab first, and often passengers fought over the bag- 
gage, as there was no one to identify the owner. Yes, 
the ownership was often established by the law of the 
jungle. Some one has said that the inventor of the 
baggage check did more to make travelers honest than 
the ten commandments. The check is a check on dis- 
honesty, and the same can be said of the bank check. 


The warden of the penitentiary at Marquette, Mich., 
recently conducted an investigation among the inmates 
of that institution and he found that one out of every 
ten persons there admitted that if they had been 
trained to use a check book they would not have com- 
mitted the deed which resulted in their conviction and 
sentence to this awful institution of mental torture, 
moral degradation, and financial ruin, where despair is 
written on the faces of those who enter and a hang- 
dog look haunts them as they depart. And the use of 
a check book would have saved ten per cent of them. 


We have to feed the birds in winter, and when the 
deep snow falls and covers the ground, our little feath- 
ered friends suffer from hunger. Blizzards then sweep 
them into an uneven battle for life where they soon 
perish. That is why we have to provide food and 
shelter for them. 

18 


There is a great lesson for us in the study of the 
bird’s nest. Whata great labor of love it is! But how 
little the birds have really learned as a matter of econ- 
omy in building! In most cases it is a new nest every 
year. But there are lots and lots of people who are not 
even satisfied with a nest. Even a house is not a 
home. 

The birds are always building. They are at the 
mercy of every person’s whims. They have never 
learned the lesson of permanency. Oh, yes, the purple 
martin has been taught that lesson, so when Mr. and 
Mrs. Martin make their summer home in a martin 
house, they make it their permanent summer residence. 


Build For Permanency. 


People have to learn the lesson of permanency. Sav- 
ages build houses of reeds and dried grass which the 
winds blow down and the fires consume. How differ- 
ent it is with the highest type of man! See our brick 
houses, our stone castles, our concrete sky-scrapers 
that defy wind and fire. 

What is our most important lesson that we must 
learn from this story? Isn’t it that we must begin 
with the little things and learn from them the greatest 
lessons of life? From the humming bird’s nest.to the 
Jacob’s seventy-two room martin mansion is no greater 
achievement than we have made here in America where 
we have gone from the Indian’s tepee and adobe house 
to the brownstone mansion and concrete palace that is 
so common that it has lost much of its real greatness. 

There is a lot of human nature to be learned from a 
study of birds and animals. “You will know people 
better if you learn more about dogs,” is an old saying 
that is true. After we have studied about birds and 
animals, we are then better able to understand what 


19 


we read about great men and women. And every boy 
and girl should be taught to study the biographies of 
the world’s great men and women, for it is by a reai 
understanding of their weaknesses, as well as their 
strength, that we are able to emulate their virtues and 
avoid the calamities caused by their mistakes. 


Business Needs. 

One of the greatest needs of our time is to have in- 
stilled into the minds and consciences of us all the 
practical fundamental facts of business. It is safe to 
say that in music, art, healing the sick, defending the 
innocent, teaching the youth, amusing the public, 
catering to the lyceum and chautauqua, yes, selling 
goods, disposing of the product of factory, store, farm, 
and mill ninety per cent of all our effort is spent on 
producing, and probably two per cent of our real 
energy goes toward honest thought on how the pro- 
ducer will sell his wares, where and when to sell. 


Here in Chicago the Board of Education and the 
Chicago Association of Commerce cooperate in secur- 
ing positions for the graduates of the high schools, and 
the schools are beginning to train the young for posi- 
tions, ‘ 


Our common work is the key to our life. Talk about 
preparedness and the need of meeting a foreign foe, 
what we need most in America is to learn to think for 
ourselves, to see for ourselves, to develop ourselves, 
to get the most out of life and to help our fellows. 


Am I blaming any individual when I picture things 
as they are? No. I am analyzing the system, that is 
all. But the lesson which needs to be learned is that 
the most independent person on earth is he who can 
sell. Salesmanship is the greatest accomplishment of 
our day. 

20 


\ 


A study of the birds lures children to the woods, to 
the fields and streams; it develops their powers of 
observation and trains them in the practices of original 
research. In the world of invention, this is a necessary 
habit. Edison invented the phonograph, and it was a 
very crude affair. Even after the wax cylinder was 
introduced, it was years before it was turned into a 
commercial proposition. How could it be used? That 
was the problem. 


The Little German Band. 


‘Victor N. Emerson sat pondering on the constant 
outgo of money and meager income from the phono- 
graph, and as he mused he heard a little German band 
playing on the street. An idea struck him. Why not 
make records of music so that the phonograph could 
supply a cheap form of home entertainment? A great 
idea. The street players—five in number—were hired 
and played all day making records. That was the real 
start of the great phonograph business which now en- 
gages the world’s greatest artists at fabulous salaries 
and never ending royalties. 

The trade mark of the Victor machine is the dog 
that knows his master’s voice. Listening—a mighty 
good thing for a dog to do, and sometimes it is as im- 
portant for men and women and children, a habit that 
the study of birds early develops. Victor Phonographs 
are a result of Victor Emerson’s power to listen, 
think, and appropriate to his own needs. The Victor 
Talking Machine Company has assets valued at nearly 
$25,000,000, paying dividends at about eighty-seven 
per cent on its stock. The Columbia Graphanolia 
Company is equipped to turn out one thousand talking 
machines a day. The Edison, the Pathe, Sonora. and 
others are all great giants. 


21 


From $125,000,000 to $150,000,000 are spent on 
phonographs every year in the United States, all be- 
cause Thomas Young discovered, in 1807, that he could 
record the vibrations of a tuning fork. Simple, wasn’t 
it? Edison’s phonographic feat was the invention of 
his impractical tinfoil record which he gave the world 
in 1876. The telephone, started as a toy, was de- 
veloped by close observation and much thought. 


First Moving Pictures. 


Moving pictures are marvelous because they are so 
simple. They were first a few leaves of paper upon 
which were printed comic pictures, assembled in the 
form of a book, so that by turning the leaves rapidly 
one got the suggestion of moving pictures. Today and 
every day, 50,000,000 people, white, black, yellow, 
brown, copper colored, and mixed hues; rich, poor, 
heathen and civilized, attend a moving picture some- 
where. | 

Los Angeles, California, is the center of this great 
motion picture industry. Twelve thousand people are 
regularly employed making pictures in the Los,Angeles 
Studios alone. ‘Theatrical stars draw five thousand 
dollars a week for acting before the camera. Five hun- 
dred automobiles are in daily use carrying the photo- 
actors to various locations where they are to act. The 
people of the United States paid $297,000,000 during 
the year of 1915, to see the films developed in the Los 
Angeles studios. And still they say this business is 
only in its infancy. The new art of the future is be- 
ing developed in the form of scenario writing. The 
New York public library recently reported that the 
book second in demand, next to fiction, was “Writing 
the Photoplay,” a text book on this marvelous new art. 

But all of these things are worth nothing to us un- 


22 


less we learn to think, learn to see, to apply to our 
needs. The power to think must be acquired before a 
child can ever hope to be anything but a follower, a 
servant, a worker who takes orders. . 

What caused Armour’s great packing houses to 
spring up all over the country? It meant some one 
thought of anew economy. Trace it step by step, and 
every advance was first a sight, then a meditation, and 
some one got busy. Historians write, not because 
they copy what other writers have written, but because 
‘they think and have learned to gather the world’s 
important events from the great mass of dusty and 
decayed ruins of the past and to restate them in a liv- 
ing language. 


Training the Eye to See. 


School books are full of hints to write essays on this 
or that theme, which all too often drive the children 
to the encyclopedia or other books of reference, with 
the result that the fine art of copying has been reduced 
to a science. But this study of birds, live, natural 
birds—Our Dooryard Friends—is one that gives a boy 
or girl a real clutch on the power to observe. It is one 
of the greatest trainings which can come to a youth. 
It was Newton’s practiced’ eye of observation which 
reasoned the falling apple into the universal law of 
gravitation. Franklin’s kite was the beginning of Edi- 
son’s electrical marvels. Watt’s mother’s teakettle was 
first observed. Columbus saw before he sailed. 
Algebra, geometry, arithmetic, geography, grammar, 
history are hard to study, because they are not put to 
practical use as fast as we learn the great lessons they 
have for us. But even the babies can learn to study 
the birds, learn to know them, learn to use their knowl- 
edge of the little feathered friends who are also quick 


23 


to get acquainted and anxious to show their love for 
their benefactors. . 

This is a practical problem and it is certainly a vital 
and timely one. Birds can be brought back. A few 
years ago Mr. Warren Jacobs of Waynesburg, Pa., 
noticed that there were only four purple martins then 
nesting in Greene County. He set to work and built 
a splendid martin house. It was soon filled, and before 
long he had a martin colony there, and last fall more 
than 1,400 purple martins left Waynesburg for their 
journey to South America, where they spend the win- 
ter. Mr. Jacobs has a factory devoted exclusively to 
the manufacture of bird houses, where he makes the 
finest mansions possible for such customers as Henry 
Ford, who has bought thirteen of these seventy-two 
roomed martin castles. William Rockefeller has a 
number, and Mrs. Potter Palmer, and many other well- 
known people in every state. Europe, before the 
war, bought these miniature bird castles. 


The best way to teach children the fundamentals of 
life is to familiarize them with bird and animal life about 
them. I know from my own experience that the animal 
and bird life about me during my childhood days had an 
abiding influence on my own life, and for that reason I 
have always encouraged my own children to make friends 
with the world about them. . To aid in that work there 
stands in our yard a beautiful bird house, where a little 
colony of purple martins each year raise their families, 
then migrate to South America, and return in the spring 
to fight it out with the sparrows for possession of their 
homes. 

While reading this book we are educating our chil- 
dren. We are doing more—we are helping the farmer, 
the horticulturist, and the gardener—aiding the health 
board to make it more sanitary and healthful for all 


24 


who breathe the air. Yes, says the city or town dwel- 
ler, this is all right for the rural community, but it 
doesn’t apply to us. Yes, we often hear that story. 
Hear it in spite of the fact that there are more trees in 
the city of Chicago than there are in whole counties of 
Kansas or Oklahoma. A study of the birds and the 
lessons which we learn from them is as much needed 
in the cities and towns as it is in the rural districts. 

Which would you rather be, a little, timid humming 
bird whose nest is almost as frail as a spider’s web, or 
a martin who has learned that there are mansions made 
for him where he can dwell and rear his family, if he 
will but look for his home? And, as Charles Darwin 
tells us that people are only birds evoluted into human 
beings, let us take a look at two types of men and see 
which one we would rather be. 


The Old Circus Clown. 


On a cold winter’s night, as the wind swept off Lake 
Michigan, the Chicago Tribune pictured an old-time 
circus clown clinging near the office radiator without 
overcoat or collar. He stood snuffling miserably, wait- 
ing for the information man’s attention. He said: “I 
want to put a piece in the paper. I want to find my 
son. I want to let him know that his old father is 
destitute and needs him. He ought to take care of me. 
Y’see, old age slipped up on me before I knew it, or 
else I’d have been heeled and ready.” 

The old circus clown’s mind wandered back to better 
days and he said: “It seems like it was only yesterday 
when I was knockin’ ’em dead in the first big top—Al 
Ringling’s. Al’s dead now, and most of them that 
clicked through the stiles to laugh at us are dead, too. 
I seem like I’ve been left behind—stranded in a rube 
town, with the show gone on to the big time.” 


25 


And this was the man who had made the world 
laugh, had earned a fortune twice over, but he had 
never learned the lesson which we are trying to learn. 

' America’s Greatest Citizen. 

Picture now a boy who learned the printer’s trade, 
studied at night, saved his pennies, saw and thought 
for himself, became the richest American of his day. 
Rich in money, mind and health, And when George 
Washington fought the War of the Revolution, it was 
this same business man and diplomat who went to 
France and borrowed the money which financed that 
great struggle. Yes, Ben Franklin was our greatest 
citizen. He founded the University of Pennsylvania, 
founded the first public library in America, organized 
an insurance company which is still extracting the fear 
of want from the fangs of death. He manufactured the 
first cooking stove, invented spectacles, and saw that 
thrift was the basis of all of his usefulness. He wrote 
more and better on this subject than any other writer. 
His autobiography has influenced more men and wom- 
en to achieve than any other book of the past cen- 
turies. 

The New Movement. 

Ex-President Roosevelt says: “We Americans have 
recklessly wasted our national assets in the past. But 
now there has come a change. We are trying to pre- 
serve our forces and utilize our water supply and care 
for the soil, instead of merely exhausting it. One of the 
pleasantest features of the new movement is the con- 
stantly growing interest in wild life, and especially 
bird life.” 

Let us take just one example of that reckless waste 
as found in the records of the great state of Pennsyl- 
vania, where in 1885 the Legislature passed what was 


26 


known as “The Scalp Act,” a piece of bone-head legisla- 
tion that was to be in the interest of the farmers, and 
which provided for a bounty of fifty cents on each 
hawk, owl, weasel and mink killed within the limits of 
the state. 

Dr. Clinton Hart Merriam, then Ornithologist and 
Mammalogist of the United States Department of Agri- 
culture, in his report to the Department, estimated that 
to save a loss of possibly $1,875 a year through the 
destruction of poultry, the state of Pennsylvania had 
in a year and a half paid $90,000. He further reported 
that this money had been paid for the destruction of 
128,571 benefactors, worth at least $3,857,130 to the 
agricultural interests of the state. In other words, that 
the state had for a year and a half been throwing 
away $2,015 for each dollar saved. 


It Pays to Miss. 

It is estimated that each meadow mouse on a farm 
causes an annual loss to the farmer of at least two 
cents, by destroying grass roots, tubers, grain, and 
young fruit trees. The marsh-hawk, one that is often 
meant when the farmer cries chicken-hawk and grabs 
his trusty rifle, eats about eight of these mice a day, or 
2,920 ina year. Nowif Mr. Farmer misses his aim his 
intended victim will put $58.40 into the community till, 
and they do say that it is an exceptionally good milk 
cow which gives as large a return as that. But why 
does Uncle Reuben kill these hawks? Because hawks 
of entirely different species have at some time carried 
off his chickens. 


What the Children Are Doing. 


‘In St. Paul, Minnesota, the boys like to go to school, 
and when they get into the sixth grade it is hard to 
pry them out. At that stage in their schooling a wise 


27 


board of education has instituted manual training, 
for every fourteen-year-old boy is a carpenter at heart. 
And they don’t make corner brackets solely. They 
make bird houses. The sixth-grade kid in St. Paul 
who isn’t putting the finishing touches to a bird 
house early in March is rare. When the bird houses 
are all finished, three or four thousand of them, you 
can see lads coming down every street in town to the 
registration office. There they enter their houses in 
the big annual bird-house exhibit, whereupon the con- 
test really begins, with the whole city: interested. 

The lads have a further incentive to set up their 
bird houses, for there’s a prize well worth the winning 
for the lucky little chap whose house is the first to 
have a tenant. It doesn’t take long for that prize to 
be won, however, for the birds of North America seem 
to have passed along to their friends the word about 
St. Paul and the refuge it offers. At least there are 
more wild song birds housed in that city than in any 
other in America—so far. Another and in some re- 
spects an even more significant result of the move 
ment is that the Humane Society of the city of St. 
Paul has gone out of business so far as bird-killing 
warnings are concerned, for every kid in town is the 
legal guardian of the birds, and the wicked sling shot, 
which has all too often driven them from other local- 
ities, is there a device unknown. 

Prizes? Of course, lots of them! And besides the 
prizes there are hundreds of grown-ups eager to buy 
the houses at the prices the little builders set on them, 
for everyone almost in St. Paul has a bird house some- 
where about the outside of his domicile. The city 
buys a lot of them for the parks, and not long ago the 
big real estate companies discovered that the placing 
of the bird houses on development tracts drew the 


28 


birds there and helped the sale of the building lots. 
But if a boy doesn’t sell his house he doesn’t mind a 
bit, for he probably knows where there’s a bird that 
needs just the sort of a house he has built; so he sets 
it up himself and waits patiently for a tenant to move 
in. He rarely has long to wait. 


WHAT THE SCHOOL CHILDREN ARE DOING. 


w The Saat of none Birds 


The Youngsters of St.Paul Have Made it That 


Ae AO Cryer be Si, Pies Prehoms Fes 


Une Hemant Woe it Twins, Gr, Logty Shuece anal Mobblerfaeet (NW Hose Watt tos Wad 45 Hwee ny Sexe ah tho ork ms de Blt Pies 


The Ladies’ Home Journal wants pictures of community activities. 
Send photographs, clearly described on the back, with the name of the 
town and your own name and address, as they pay the highest mag- 
azine rates for all such pictures that they accept for publication, 


29 


The Results. 


What does a study of the birds do for the children? 
This question has been so well answered by Ernest 
Harold Baynes, of whom Theodore Roosevelt says: 
“Mr. Baynes writes in advocacy of a cause which by 
practical achievement he has shown to be entitled to 
the support of every sensible man, woman and child in 
the country.” 

Mr. Baynes in his splendid book, “Wild Bird Guests,” 
which ought to be in the hands of every bird lover and 
community builder, says: “JI have noticed that the 
work of providing for the needs of wild birds has a 
wonderfully good effect upon the people engaged in it. . 


In the first place it awakens or stimulates an interest 


in an important and fascinating subject, and provides 
for the mental and physical activities an outlet which 
can lead only to good. Through it the coming gen- 
eration will get practical experience in the conserva- 
tion of our natural resources, and thus by taking part 
in a great national movement they will at an early 
age begin to feel the joy of being useful. Most work 
of a public nature is impractical for children, but here 
is a work in which young people can be almost as 
-useful as older ones and at the same time provide for 
themselves one of the sweetest and most satisfying 
hobbies known to man. Work for the birds tends to 
thoughtfulness and consideration; inasmuch as it is 
inspired by the work the birds do for us, it encourages 
appreciation and gratitude, and a sense of justice and 
fair play; as it brings to the worker a sense of the 
helplessness of his feathered friends at certain times, 
it begets feelings of humanity, kindness, sympathy, and 
compassion, and stimulates warmth of heart; and if 
some personal sacrifice is required in order to do 


30 


* this work, the worker gets practice in unselfishness. 
And it is the opinion of the author that if children once 
learn these things, they will have a very fair start 
towards good citizenship if they are not taught any- 
thing else.” 


THE HOUSE FLY. 

DrizW; ‘S- Sadler’ says:>< We 
can no longer consider the or- 
dinary house fly as a harmless 
nuisance or regard it merely as a 
pest. This little insect is one of 
the most dangerous on the face of 
the earth as regards the health 
and happiness of the human race. 
Flies carry the deadly germs of 
disease by the millions on their 
feet. From 500 to 20,000 germs of typhoid fever and 
other. summer diarrhoeal diseases have been found on 
one foot of a single fly, and the fly, it should be re- 
membered, has a half-dozen feet. The house fly ought 
to be called the “typhoid fly” but for the serious fact 
that it is also the means of carrying and communicat- 
ing almost a dozen other forms of disease. Flies which 
feast upon tuberculosis sputum have been found to 
deposit: 3,000 tubercle germs with each fly speck, and 
every fly is estimated to make twenty-five specks a day. 
Thousands of people who are horrified to find a bed- 
bug in the house are indifferent to flies as they swarm 
about the food through the kitchen, crawl over the 
face and lips of the sleeping baby, and expose the 
entire family to the contraction of any dangerous dis- 
ease that may be within halfa mile of their dwelling 
place... It is time that we awaken to the fact that 
mosquito bars and screens are cheaper than doctors’ 
bills and funerals.” 


31 


There are 180,000 cases of typhoid in the United 
States in a year—and the fly is largely responsible for 
this terrible consequence. Every year 70,000 infants 
under two years of age die in the United States from 
diarrhea and enteritis—and again the fly is responsible 
to a considerable extent for this fearful result. 

These facts are gathered from the report of Ernest A. 
Sweet, past assistant surgeon United States Public 
Health Service, and they ought to be studied. The 
report says: “Naturally the combined effects of all 
the enemies upon the fly population are almost neg- 
ligible. The enemies that destroy the larvae are, how- 
ever, much more successful in their inroads. First 
place should, of course, be given to the birds, which 
eagerly devour both larvae and adult forms.” 


The New Classical ‘‘Panthenon’’ Jacobs Bird-House 
The most elaborate martin house ever placed before the birdlovers. Sixty 
rooms. Weight 600 pounds. This beautiful house from the Jacobs Bird-House 
Company, Waynesburg, Pa., adorns the residence grounds of W. O. Ansley, 
La Porie, a suburb of Houston, Texas. ; 


32 


The City Hall. 


OMAHA’S OBJECT-LESSON IN BIRD-HOUSE 
BUILDING. 


By C. H. English, Superintendent of Public Recreation, 
Omaha, Nebraska. 


In the Council Chambers of the City Hall of Omaha 
was held on March 23, 24, and 25, 1916, the most 
unique and beautiful bird-house exhibit ever staged in 
a western city. The bird-houses were built by the 
boys and girls of the Omaha grade schools in the 
manual training department under the general super- 
vision of Miss Helen Thompson. The material for 
these houses was supplied by City Commissioner J. B. 
Hummel, superintendent of parks and public property. 


33 


Bird-Houses. 

Over four hundred bird-houses were on exhibit and 
‘made.a wonderful display of art, genius, and excellent — 
workmanship. All of these houses are to be set up in 
Omaha’s beautiful parks, where the bird life will be 
protected from harm by the squirrels and be encour- 
aged to come to these bird sanctuaries. 

The spirit of this western metropolis was aivertedt 


from its great commercial growth, for the time, to the os 
welfare of its feathered guests who are just arriving _ 


from the south to give us the surety of spring and glad- _ 
ness of heart by their joyful song. ‘There are to be 
found in Omaha alone one hundred and fifty varieties. 
and in the State of Nebraska, which has the reputation | 
of having the greatest variety of birds of any state in- 
the Union, are to be found in all seasons over four 
hundred varieties. 


An Object Lesson. 


_ The greatest interest in bird-lore that Omaha has 
ever shown culminated in this artistic and beautiful 
exhibit. The Council Chamber, with its high ceiling 
and beautiful, decorated walls, made a wonderful set- 
ting for such an exhibit. Five twenty-foot trees were 
brought in and served as an object-lesson on the cor- 
rect method of hanging the houses. 


Real Live Birds. 


Real live birds were also placed in these trees, lend- 
ing an actual atmosphere by their cheery song notes. 
Various varieties of stuffed birds were placed in front 
of a number of houses to show how the bird really 
enters his home and gave an excellent realism to the 
display. Hidden in one corner was a victrola, where 
the Kellogg and Gorst records were constantly filling 
the room with bird calls. This caused a mystery to 

34 | 


adults as well as children, who could not at first detect 
just where the birds could be singing so lustily. 


Recognized Her Brother’s Record. 


One of the interesting events developed when the 
sister of Charles C. Gorst, the Harvard bird man, 
recognized immediately her brother’s Edison record 
of the bird songs. Mr. Gorst was formerly an Omaha 
boy and was born in Neligh, Nebraska. His sister 
states that he first learned the notes of the meadow- 
lark and other birds while milking the cows on their 
farm at Neligh. 

In this exhibit of many kinds, shapes, colors and 
styles of bird-house, thirty-eight of the local schools 
contributed, each school sending from one to thirty 
houses, while the Fort School for Boys sent forty in a 
separate exhibit. 


No Prizes Were Offered. 


No prizes were offered. This exhibit proved without 
a doubt that prizes were not needed; for, at most, 
prizes would only be an artificial bait. The real mo- 
tive for building them was loyalty to the school ex- 
hibit, interest in bird life, and personal satisfaction in 
actually constructing a thing of beauty, as each one 
really was. 


Public Interest. 


Every boy or girl visitor found keen delight in seeing 
either his own creation on display or that of his school. 
The parents were no less filled with pride as the dis- 
covery was made of a bird-house whose very dimen- 
sions, color, and purpose had been a subject of discus- 
sion at the dinner-table for the last four weeks. 

Many thousands attended this exhibit, and the count 
showed an equal interest on the part of adults. It 


was a source of education to every one, and one never 
grew tired of discovering a new shaped house after 
seeing the exhibit perhaps a dozen times. Some came 
to take notes on how to build them. Other profession- 
al men, school board members, city commissioners and 
business men, wanted to buy one or two each. The 
entire four hundred houses could have been sold on 
the first day. One representative of a local cemetery 
company secured the promise of fifty houses, to be 
built by the Fort School boys, which are to be placed 
in the cemetery, where the first bird sanctuary of its 
kind in the West has been established. 


Aided the Inventive Instinct. 


This exhibit brought out very clearly the inventive 
instinct in boys and girls, for no two bird-houses were 
alike. One had hollowed out a cocoanut for a wren 
house. Another had a wooden syrup pail inverted 
with the roof on the bottom of the pail and the bail 
acting as a swinging perch. 

One little girl sewed two fig paiecles together and 
put a roof on them. A little nine-year-old boy put 
rockers on his house, so that the wind would rock the 
little baby birds to sleep. There were unlimited styles 
and shapes, but the rustic type predominated—log 
cabins, tepees, ordinary logs hollowed out, and one 
birch-barked cabin. Natural wood, martin houses, 
tenement-like, for at least twelve families, was another 
style. One little colored boy had started a bird-house 
at his school when he had to undergo an operation on 
his leg. He was unable to go to school, being confined 
to his bed. The spirit was there, and he wanted to 
exhibit his bird-house with the rest of his schoolmates. 
So with the aid of a set of tools, borrowed from school, 
and the assistance of his father, who was a plasterer 


36 


by trade, this little fellow made his house on his bed 
and finished in time to have it exhibited with the rest. 
His father came to the exhibit to see it and to report 
to his son. The boys of that school never tired of 
telling the story of this littke stucco-house, which had 
a prominent place on a front table. 


Delegate from Out of Town. 

The Fremont Board of Education sent two high 
school boys to Omaha to _secure information on bird- 
house construction and paid the expenses of the visi- 
tors. Thus the interest which is permeating all Omaha 
is reaching other cities in the state. 

Great Value to the City. 

The exhibit has been of great value to the city in 
several ways. It has connected the school life with the 
lessons to be taught in the study of birds, their habits 
and needs. There will be less shooting of birds and 
fewer eggs destroyed in Omaha this year. The inter- 
est of the children has aroused into activity the adults, 
who realize that birds have a commercial value to a 
city and state as well as a moral value. It has shown 
in a practical way the value of the manual training 
departments in the public school. It will give greater 
impetus to the study of bird life and its conservation 
by all ages and, particularly, to the children, 

This exhibit has been a revelation to the State Audu- 
bon Society, which, with the local press, is responsible 
for the initial interest, to the city officials, to the school 
board, to the citizens in general, and to the school 
children themselves. 

All Omaha now has a new aspiration as a result of 
this splendid constructive educational movement which 
has aroused such an interest in the welfare of Omaha’s 
feathered citizens——Reprinted from that splendid Bos- 
ton Monthly, OUR DUMB ANIMALS. 

37 


Henry Ford and His First Automobile Developed 
from the Bicycle. 


WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? 


What does all this activity mean when measured in 
terms of manhood, citizenship, and character? Does 
it mean a wider vision and a better life? Most as- 
suredly yes. 

This Is Not a Flivver. 


Henry Ford—you may have heard of him—and no 
doubt you will hear a great deal more about this same 
great character in the years to come—can take time 
to personally look after his Bird Sanctuary on his 


38 


great estate at Dearborn, Mich., where he has four 
thousand acres dedicated to the use of the birds where 
more than five hundred bird houses are dotted around 
over this bird haven. Mr. Ford has taken such an 
interest in our little feathered friends that he has issued 
a booklet about the birds which make life one eternal 
song for the great automobile manufacturer, for that 
great moral leader and sociologist who has even made 
crooked men straight by giving six hundred ex-convicts 
positions where all but six have made good. Drop him 
a post card at Detroit and ask for this booklet. It is 
free and worth reading. 


James J. Hill. 


The late James J. Hill, known as the empire builder 
of the Northwest, was a man among men because of 
his farsightedness and broad sympathy. Mr. Hill . 
began his business life at the enormous wage of one 
dollar per week. He died worth perhaps one hundred 
and fifty millions, but no one can ever measure the 
worth of that great soul by cyphers, mere figures 
strung together as though they were beads on a string. 
In an editorial the Chicago Tribune said: 


“The death of James J. Hill comes at a time when 
our thought is clearer than it has been for many years. 
We are better able to assay the merits of a true builder 
of America and to appreciate the very great social and 
economic services of this life of singular foresight and 
constructive ability. We realize that if Mr. Hill leaves 
a large fortune its sum is small compared to the wealth 
he developed for others and the service his faith, his 
imagination and his will performed for a great section 
of the continent. We can discriminate between the 
work and character of a great builder like James J. 
Hill and the ravenous, destructive, and demoralizing 

39 


activities of other men which backward laws and con- 
fused public opinion were unable to control.” 


When the Test Came. 


But did he think only of Jim Hill when he was con- 
fronted with a crisis? Oh no! It is said that when 
the European war broke out and thousands of Ameri- 
cans were seized with stage fright, or that panicky feel- 
ing that is better understood by the expression “They 
got cold feet,” thousands wanted to hide their own 
savings, they tightened up on the credit that had been 
extended to others and were about to draw in all loans 
when this great financier, banker, and humanitarian 
called his own bank directors together and said: 
“There should be no trouble, but if there is, here is one 
hundred million dollars of my own personal capital 
which is at your disposal,” and the panic was averted 
and we entered into the greatest industrial boom of 
our national history. 


The Real Benefit. 


When great financial institutions like the First Na- 
tional Bank of St. Paul, can aid in a campaign like 
the one that has already made the twin cities the bird 
center of America, why shouldn’t we all see the need of 
conserving the one billion dollars of wealth that is 
annually lost to us that could be saved if we but would 
give the needed attention to our little feathered friends. 
What they would then do in return for us as individ- 
uals is nothing as compared to the greater blessing 
that cooperation and our larger undertaking will mean 
to our community and to our nation as measured in the 
increase of heart, strength, and character of our citizen- 
ship. 


Studying About Birds in School. 


In Defiance, Ohio, there lives a school-teacher who 
has devoted her life and talents to educating the youth 
of her city. She has been a great lover of nature, and 
has taught the boys and girls many great and valuable 
lessons about nature and nature’s laws. She has been 
the source of a perpetual fountain from which flows 
that contagious enthusiasm which has set her city to 
seeing and talking about birds and their needs, and the 
benefits they are to society. She has set Defiance 
County thirsting after this same knowledge. This 
enthusiasm kept on swelling and surging until it broke 
all barriers and is today a factor in the public school 
system of the old Buckeye State. 

Miss Sara V. Preuser began to study birds. Later 
she began to write about these little feathered friends 
for the school journals and educational magazines, 
not only in Ohio but throughout the country. Farm 
journals then published her stories and had her write 
more and more. These big farm journals are edited 
by keen business men who saw that while she was 
teaching the children, by inference, the lessons of love, 
kindness, thoughtfulness, industry, and frugality, she 
was also teaching their parents the need of better pro- 
tecting and preserving our bird life, so that we may reap 
more bountiful harvests, and gather more luscious 
fruits from vine and tree. 

41 


It was only natural then that her writings should 
become so generally helpful and interesting that people 
began to ask her to gather them into a book. She finally 
yielded to the call of the wild, and set to work writing 
a book for the entertainment of boys and girls and for 
the better conservation of our wealth as produced by 
the farmers of this country. 


She wrote and had published a beautiful volume, 
entitled “(Our Dooryard Friends.”’ It seemed to meet 
with unusual favor right from the start. Superintendent 
of Schools E. W. Howey, of her own home city of De- 
flance, was in trumental in so interesting the school 
children and the people of Defiance in the contents of 
that volume that it was not off the press many weeks 
before they had actually purchased and were busy 
reading and studying about “Our Dooryard Friends.”’ 
This proved so constructive as a community venture 
that it wasn’t long before its effects were noticeable 
in the conduct of the boys and girls themselves.. Super- 
intendent Howey said: ‘I doubt if you could find a 
boy in Defiance who would throw a stone at a bird or 
rob a nest, certainly not in the presence of any other 
boy or girl, so great has been the effect of this book 
upon our community.” This had actually added to 
the community consciousness, for when two hundred 
and sixty-five of these books were being read and caus- 
ing the people to think in common the same line of . 
thought and do it at practically the same time, there 
was bound to be community action. That followed 
of necessity. | 

The Ohio State Teachers Reading Circle next adopted 
this book as one of the supplementary readers for the 
children of the sixth grade for all the public schools 
in the state. It is being read all over Ohio right now. 
It is sold through the schools by the Ohio Teachers 

42 


Reading Circle, W. E. Kershner, Business Manager, 
48 East Gay St., Columbus, Ohio, and this earnest, 
conscientious teacher is now influencing her state. 
The great naturalist, John Burroughs, in writing about 
this book, said: ‘It is a very estimable piece of work 
and ought to serve a very useful purpose!”” And it is 
serving a useful purpose, for, as Mr. Frank Chapman, 
Curator of the New York Museum of Natural History, 
and Editor of that splendid magazine, “Bird Lore,” 


Miss Sara V. Prueser, teacher, lover of nature, and author of 
OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS, searching for material for her 


nature study stories. 
43 


has observed: ‘‘This book, dealing with the birds of 
our dooryards, is opening the gate which leads to the 
larger joys of the fields and forests lying beyond!” 

This book is reaching beyond the confines of Uncle 
Sam’s domain, for the Agricultural Department of 
Canada sent out not long ago an official bulletin to 
fifty thousand farmers in which T. K. Doherty, LL. B., 
who is an instructor in agriculture at the University 
of Ottawa said: “ ‘Our Dooryard Friends’ is a very inter- 
esting book which should create a desire for the preserva- 
tion and protection of our feathered friends. The book 
should be read especially by the boys and girls.”’ 


A Lesson for Teachers. 


The average county superintendent finds that about 
one-third of his teaching force is made up of beginners 
each year. If the teachers of our public schools could 
but learn to see and do more for themselves, and to 
teach less of what some textbook writer compiled from 
other textbook compilers who wrote much about the 
theory but knew little about the subject, there would 
be more teachers like Miss Sara V. Preuser, who will be 
teaching teachers long after she shall have been laid 
to rest. She wrote of what she saw, of what she knew. 
That is why her writings are influencing a continent. 


One Ohio editor has said: ‘‘Priceless is such a book 
as OUR DOORYARD FRIENDS for it is limitless 
in its possibilities; it may do for the youth what the 
long days of English country life and observation did 
for Charles Darwin. He walked the woods with his 
father. Stopped by every color, every movement, the 
little fellow asked endless quéstions. In those long 
walks and in his father’s patient answers lay the germ of 
the master’s knowledge of science—that Pe paUUC ized 
the thought of the world.” 

a4 


Canaries and Mice. 


It is only natural that we should be only novices 
in this great war game. It is, however, to our eternal 
credit that we are able to adjust ourselves to the changed 
condition and the changed needs that war has brought 
upon us. 

One day not long ago the War Department received 
a telegram from General Pershing, reading: 


Send one thousand canaries and one thousand white mice. 


The message was sent to the chief purchaser for the 
expeditionary forces. He read the words and sent the 
dispatch back to the Secretary of War with the request 
that it be uncoded. The code room of the War Depart- 
ment returned it with a note saying that it could not be 
uncoded, that it was just a plain telegram. 

The purchaser was baffled. He did not know whether 
the telegram was a joke or an order, so he consulted a 
former United States military attaché in France. 
~ “Do you suppose that General Pershing actually 
wants white mice and canaries?’ he asked the captain, 
handing him the cable. 

‘Yes, sir!’’ was the military reply. ‘White mice and 
canaries are placed in the first-line trenches because they 
can detect poisonous gases much quicker than the sol- 
diers. When a soldier sees a canary bat its wings or a 
white mouse trying to bury its nose he understands 
that it is high time for him to put on his gas mask. 
White mice and canaries have saved thousands of lives 
in France, and we should supply our army immediately.” 

A deaf and dumb person can hear it thunder and a 
blind man can see the lightning during a storm, but it 
takes a trained scientist to utilize the sensitive senses 
of white mice and canary birds during a great conflict. 


45 


BRONTE 


The educated Scotch Collie, whom the famous naturalist, Ernest 
Thompson Seton, said ‘‘Was the greatest object lesson for kindness 
to animals which could be placed before a child.” 


46 


The Story of Bronte. 


The great things of life have been mostly achieved by 
simple means. Franklin’s kite is typical of the labora- 
tories of the great scientists. The world’s greatest teach- 
ers have had neither colleges nor universities in which 
to teach. The real problem is to get young folks to 
make up their minds to do and to try to do. To see 
what is needed to be done is three-fourths of any battle. 

Yes, that all sounds well, says the young student. 
But I haven’t the means with which to work. To all 
who really want to see what can be done let us cite the 
case of William A. McCormick and what his persistence 
has accomplished. Assisted by his faithful collie dog, 
Bronte, who accompanied him for twelve years, he 
entertained and taught the school children in nearly 
three thousand public schools, normals, colleges and 
universities. 

Who is William A. McCormick? He is a lyceum 
and Chautauqua entertainer who has spent many 
years upon the platform as a whistler and bird im- 
itator. Heis student and lover of nature. He has 
had the farsight to develop a fotm of entertainment 
which was so laden with instruction and educational 
inspiration that he spent years visiting and entertain- 
ing in schools where the doors were closed to even 
musicians, singers, concert companies, readers and lit- 
erary entertainers and interpreters. With his ever 
faithful Scotch Collie he had entrance into homes, 
schools, churches and select gatherings of all kinds 
where entertainment was on tap. 

Bronte was a beautiful Scotch collie, and was, without 
doubt, one of the most intelligent and kind-hearted 
creatures ever born to grace the dog family and bring 
pleasure into the lives of thousands and thousands of 
children. 

47 


Entertaining Children. 


Bronte gave two hundred children’s Christmas enter- 
tainments, mostly in the rich and fashionable homes in 
Chicago or near the great windy city. She entertained 
and was featured as the great attraction programmed 
for the children on two hundred chautauquas scattered 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. At some of these great 
summer assemblies she entertained as many as ten and 
fifteen thousand children and grown-up children at one 
time. One chautauqua in Nebraska advertised free 
admission to each child who attended Sunday school 
anywhere within the county. At Wathena, Kans., the 
chautauqua presented Bronte as the special attraction 
for ‘‘Children’s Day,” offering free admission to each 
school child in the county. There were three trains, 
thirty-two coaches in all, loaded with excursionists, 
bound for the chautauqua. The receipts for the adult 
single admissions at the gate were $284.50, drawing 
more people for Monday afternoon than the late Sam 
Jones drew on the preceding Sunday. At Colfax, Iowa, 
Bronte drew more people than ‘‘Billy’’ Sunday, the 
famous evangelist, who was then Colte chautauqua 
lecturing. 

Bronte traveled all over this country as a lyceum 
attraction. Was booked on five hundred lecture courses. 
She traveled from Canada to southern Florida, and from 
there to Vancouver. In all she traveled two hundred thou- 
sand miles and was never in a baggage car. Her master 
carried her in a basket or Japanese telescope, and when 
once in the train no conductor who ever punched a 
ticket had the heart to disturb her. 

Bronte entertained perhaps a million school children 
in the state of Illinois, so that there were at one time more 
dogs named Bronte in this state than any other name, 
with the possible exception of ‘“Teddy.”, The Rough 


48 


Rider President was held in high esteem by children, 
who honored the idol of their hearts by naming their 
dogs in his honor. Such big city schools as the Wendell 
Phillips High, Chicago, were thrown open to Bronte, who 
year after year visited them to the great delight of the 
children and to the profit of the school and the moral 
betterment of the community. 

Superintendent William Wirt of Gary, Ind., said, 
“Bronte gave a most wonderful exhibition. The respect | 
and love for animals encouraged by this entertainment 
is the best thing we have had in our school experience.”’ 
And hundreds of schools, normals, colleges, and chau- 
tauqua promoters were as pronounced in their views as 
to what this collie had accomplished as was Superin- 
tendent Wirt. What effect did this have on the lives 
of the children? It taught them to be kind to birds and 
animals. It taught them to feel and to realize that 
even the birds and beasts have the same sense of pain 
that we have. It made them kind to each other, and 
helped to make them better men and better women. 


But did it pay? Well, McCormick traveled all over 
this country with that dog, giving entertainments for 
the chautauqua and lyceum patrons, besides doing his 
phenomenal school work where the children were en- 
tertained and taught, and when on December 12, 
1916, Bronte died of old age it was found that she 
had built four beautiful summer cottages with her earn- 
ings. These cottages are at Onekama, Mich., and are 
a monument to a noble animal who lived to make our 
children happy and our country better. 


Entertainment in the School. 


Early in his life Mr. McCormick saw that there was 
very little in the way of real entertainment provided 
for children in the public schools, and that to suggest 
to school directors that a part of the school money, 

49 


raised by taxes, might well be spent for entertainment 
for the children would be the highest act of folly that 
one could commit. So he set to work to provide some 
real entertainment in which he coupled so much instruc- 
tion that it was not long before the wide-awake teachers 
were teaching through his entertainment. He taught 
the children such invaluable lessons as how to get ac- 
quainted with wild birds, how to build bird houses that 
will attract birds to build their nests in them, and why 
birds should be fed in the winter time. He taught the 
children how to study nature round about them. He 
has pointed to the fact that Germany excelled in the 
manufacture of dyestuff because the German chemists 
patterned their formulas after nature, citing as an ex- 
ample the manufacture of indelible ink, which they 
learned from the cuttlefish, whose inky fluid has power 
to so darken the waters of the sea that its enemies are 
lost in the flood of bewildering darkness when they 
attempt to disturb it. Hundreds of such lessons have 
been taught by this observing student of nature, and his 
enthusiasm has been passed on to the children who in 
turn have carried it home to their parents. 


In short the schoolroom has been turned into a forest 
of beauty where nature ran riot, and even the teachers 
were taught, and the parents were enticed into the school- 
room, where they heard echoes of the forest which 
carried them back in memory to the happy springtime 
of their lives when they roamed the woods hunting the 
early arbutus, and listened to the love calls of mating 
birds. The plaintive notes of the whippoorwill only 
enticed them further into the forest of memory, where 
they listened again to birds of every color and from 
every clime, as this master whistler warbled his wild- 
wood freedom from the platform, and all nature was 
brought into the schoolroom in the guise of an enter- 

50 


tainment, and the children were taught how to learn from 
the greatest of all teachers, Nature. 


What is Mr. McCormick doing now that Bronte is 
dead? He is still entertaining the schools with his 
whistling and bird imitations. He is now telling the 
same audiences, where he has visited from year to year 
for twelve years, the story of Bronte’s life, and the 
eager, expectant faces of the children as they sit with 
bated breath listening long after school hours to the 
fascinating stories about birds and animals, and the 
almost personal interest in the story of Bronte and her 
years of service show that there is.a great field for such . 
effort. 

Neltje Blanchan, author of “Bird Neighbors,” setting 
forth what nature study means to children, has said: 
“Nature is the best teacher of us all, trains the child’s 
eyes through study of the birds to quickness and pre- 
cision, which are the first requisites for all intelligent 
observation in every field of knowledge.” 


Starting the Child Right. 


Arthur Bisbane has for years been said to be paid 
$75,000 a year salary as editor of the great chain of 
Hearst papers. What Mr. Brisbane says ought to be 
given great consideration. Ina recent editorial he made 
this appeal: 

“Young people, start now to use your brains. Take 
nothing for granted, not even the fact that the moon 
stays in her appointed place or that the poor starve and 
freeze amid plenty. 

“Think of the things which are wrong and of the possi- 
bilities of righting them. Study your own weaknesses 
and your imperfections. There is power in your brain 
to correct them if you will develop that power.”’ 


51 


Dogs and the War. 


The following facts were taken from a long article 
published in The London, England, Times, and shows 
the part that dogs played in winning the great war for 
human and world freedom. 

For more than two years dogs were officially used in 
the war. In the early months of 1917 a War Dog School 
of Instruction was formed by the War Office, and Lieut.- 
Col. Richardson, who has devoted his life to training 
dogs for military and police purposes, was appointed 
commandant. It is an interesting fact, and not without 
a certain pathos, that many a brave soldier owes his 
life to some poor, uncared-for, stray dog. 

It is only fitting that we should know that our dogs 
have been the means of saving countless lives and much 
valuable property, and have also been instrumental in 
materially substituting for man-power at a time when 
this was all-important. 

The skill, courage and tenacity of these dogs have 
been amazing. During heavy barrages, when all other 
communications have been cut, the messenger dogs 
have made their way, and in many cases have brought 
messages of vital import. Sometimes they have been 
wounded in the performance of their duties, and there 
is a wonderful record of the determination with which 
wounded dogs have persisted in their duty. In the 
same way the record continues of successful message- 
carrying through darkness, mist, rain and shell-fire, and 
over every sort of difficult ground. Many a time has 
a dog brought a message in a few minutes over ground 
that would take a runner hours to cross. 

In the last great German assault our line was cut off 
by severe enemy barrage. A messenger dog was re- 
leased with an urgent appeal for reinforcements. It ran 
214 miles in 10 minutes. A French colonial divi- 


52 


sion was sent up and saved the situation, otherwise 
there would have been a terrible disaster. On many 
other occasions messenger dogs were taken up with 
our assaulting troops and carried back details of the 
captured positions to brigade headquarters, whereby 
the state of affairs was accurately gauged and acted 
upon without delay. On one of these occasions a dog 
ran five miles in 20 minutes, while in another case a dog 
carried back a map of an important position in 20 
minutes when a man would have taken an hour and a 
half to bring it in. In positions where runners have been 
unable to move at all messenger dogs have carried out 
their mission faultlessly. The breeds that have given 
the best results for this work have been collies, sheep 
dogs, lurchers and Airedales, and crosses of these varie- 
ties, while in several cases Welsh and Irish terriers of 
the large type have given excellent results. 

The dogs all loved their work. They had ideal train- 
ing grounds. Unvarying kindness and devoted service 
governed their management and that is why they gave 
such splendid service to the great cause of world better- 
ment. 


World’s Champion Hunter. 


When William Hohenzollern was a little boy he was 
given battle ships, guns and cannons as toys. His very 
play taught him how to take life. In spite of the fact 
that he had a withered arm he was taught to shoot 
to kill. At the time the once mighty Kaiser abdicated 
his throne and fled from his own army he boasted that 
he was the champion hunter of the world, claiming to 
have killed 61,730 pieces of game, more than 4,000 of 
which were stags. From shooting birds and animals 
as a boy to starting a world war in which it is estimated 
that already 25,000,000 lives were taken, was a very 
natural step. 

53 


The Kaiser wasn’t even a sportsman. He didn’t 
hunt but sat down in a secluded spot and had his hounds 
and his paid murderers chase the game past him that 
he might kill for the fun of killing. Is it any wonder that 
William, Hohenzollern, German Emperor and Kaiser 
for the Prussians, became the champion butcher of all 
the ages? Nero looks tame along side of the Kaiser. 

Why was the Kaiser a vain conceited monomaniac? 
It was the system of government under which he was 
born and raised that made him what he was. It was 
not heredity but environment. He talked about being 
the instrument of the Almighty until he believed that 
he was different from other people. In a proclamation 
to his army he said: ‘Woe and death to all those who 
shall oppose my will.’’ In addressing his soldiers he 
said: ‘““You owe absolute obedience to me. If I should 
command you to fire upon your own brothers and sis- 
ters, mothers and fathers, you must remember that it 
is your sworn duty to obey my orders. My will is su- 
preme.”’ | 

This was the same Kaiser who wrote to a mother 
who had lost nine sons in the war and said that he was 
“Delighted” and sent her one of his autographed photo- 
graphs. ey 

Did you ever read the tender hearted letter that 
Abraham Lincoln wrote to a mother who had lost 
three sons in the war for the Union? | 


Our Great Democrat. 


Abraham Lincoln was born in poverty, he struggled 
against adversity, underwent hardships and lived close 
to nature. It is said that once, as he was riding along 
the road on his way to attend a lawsuit, seeing a little 
bird that had fallen out of its nest and lay almost dead 
on the ground, he got off his horse and tenderly lifted 
the little creature back to its tiny home in the tree and 

54 


then rode on his way feeling that he had but done his 
duty to one of God’s creatures. It was such training 
as that which fitted Abraham Lincoln for the wonder- 
ful part which he was to play in the world’s history. 

If the command still holds good that we shall judge, 
as of old, then we can contrast the Kaiser, the auto- 
crat, with Lincoln, the great democrat. Surely we can 
say that it is better to make friends and companions 
with even the birds of the air and the beasts of the for- 
est than to ruthlessly slaughter life in any form. This 
law still holds good: ‘‘Whatsoever ye sow that. shall 
ye also reap.” 


Why We Have Pets. 


Observation has taught us that in those parts of even 
America where bird and animal life is held cheapest 
there also is human life of less value than property 
rights. People who are not kind to dogs and horses 
are not kind to each other. 

The writer has spent hours and hours in the Atlantic 
and Pacific Bird Store, 327 W. Madison St., Chicago, 
studying, not only the birds and pets which are for sale 
in that store, perhaps the greatest pet shop in the world, 
but also the people who deal in that line of strange 
business. The women who buy canary birds, parrots 
and other pets with the idea of giving them a place 
in their own heart and life are the ones who have the 
mother instinct large in their makeup. Girls who are 
true to a canary bird are generally speaking the kind 
who will be true to a good husband. The girl who buys 
a parrot to have something to entertain her usually is 
looking for a husband for the same purpose. Real men 
have something else to do in life and that is one cause 
of many unhappy homes. The same is as true of the men 
as it is of the women. A boy, who isn’t big enough and 
doesn’t know enough to get more pleasure from mak- 

55 


ing a robin or a squirrel, a friend, by winning his confi- 
dence, than by cruelly penning him in a cage, hasn’t 
learned very much about how to get real pleasure from 
life. A boy who has to pen his little friends in a cage 
or tie them to a post is the type who, if not developed 
more humanely will eventually find his life work as a 
slave driver over a gang of ditch diggers or some other 
such work. The finer senses are developed by help- 
ing others. 


American Dolls. 


Our own Chicago is fast becoming the leading Ameri- 
can center where the children are being led into high- 
er, nobler realms of living through the influence of our 
toy makers and the unbelievable number of directors 
of play and juvenile activity who are annually sent 
out from this city. In fact this is the training camp 
for child workers and thousands of American com- 
munities have felt the influence of these leaders. 


Already there is a great advance made in the doll 
line and America is growing rapidly as a doll producing 
nation. Among the new ideas promulgated by the 
manufacturers of this line in Mrs. Jessie McCutcheon 
Raleigh, sister of the famous McCutcheon brothers, 
John, the cartoonist; George Barr, novelist, and Ben, 
the editorial writer. 


Mrs. Raleigh has entered the doll industry with a 
high artistic purpose. She believes there is a wonderful 
opportunity to add to the delights of American child- 
hood by the creation of dolls which are expressive of 
the child spirit of this country, and are the embodi- 
ment of the childish graces peculiarly American. She 
believes that American children are the most lovely 

56 


Mrs. Jessie McCutcheon Raleigh and Some of Her Lovely Children. 
All Are Really Dolls. They All but Talk. Each,One Has 
Been Patterned After an American Youth. 


57 


things in the world, distinguished by a beauty and 
spirituelle of face and form Bes SEPEHOE breeding 
has bequeathed. 

The Raleigh dolls are all hand painted and sculptured 
from real life, each one representing some child that 
posed for it. They have unusually lifelike expressions 


-.and-are: named for what they suggest... They are light 


in weight and unbreakable and made so that the arms 
.and legs can be turned and. fixed in any Way. so as to 
give them a more lifelike appearance. 

America is destined to supersede Germany by win- 
ning the little mothers’ hearts through the newer and 
nobler and more humanly natural dolls, which are fast 
- taking the place once held by the “Made in Germany’”’ 
toys. 


Inspiring Children. 


At Eyanston, Ill., the city graded schools Neel 1,500 
of. these booklets as a sort of supplimentary reader and 
other schools have used from 500 to 1,000 of them for 
the same purpose. Those who have the future welfare 
of the youth of our country at heart realize that the 
way to develop the future citizenship to ways of better 
living, to better methods of doing business, is to teach 
them the great universal laws which underlie all life. 

What would the church have been if it were not for 
the Sunday school as a feeder? A wise banker recently 
said: ‘‘Give me the children who deposit their pennies 
today and I will have THE big builders, borrowers and 
patrons of tomorrow.’ 

There is a greater future for this line of activity tHe 
has ever been realized even by its own best friends. 
Commercial interests should study the possibilities 
of the future in this plan of organizing the play of young 
America. 


58 


President Wilsog, Sees Our Gains. 


There is no one better able to speak words of encour- 
agement to us at this time, nor is there anyone among 
us better qualified to extract the valuable lessons which 
this great world war is teaching, than is the far-sighted 
man who has carried the burdens of the nation through 
sO many months and years of the worst strife and the 
bloodiest conflict that the world has ever witnessed. 
What then does President Woodrow Wilson say? Read 
well his words: 


I suppoge not many fortunate by-products 
can come out of a war, but if this country can 
learn something about saving out of the war, it , 
will be worth the cost of the war; I mean the 
literal cost of it, in money and resources. I 
suppose we have several times overwasted more 
than we are now able to spend. We have not 
known that there was any limit to our resources; 
we are now finding out that there may be if we 
are not careful. 


What Other Great Presidents Have Said. 


The beloved martyred President, William E. Mc- 
Kinley, was a staunch believer in the youth of America. 
He mingled with sages and statesmen, but that never 
blinded him to the fact that young America must ever 
be the real constructive force; it must furnish the phy- 
sical energy to dare and todo. Yes, even the children 
in the American homes were the object of his untiring 
solicitation. He said: ‘The little savings bank in 
the home means more for the future of the children of 
a family, almost, than all of the advice in the world. 
It gives them the right start.”” Yes, the very protective 
tariff, which furnished ammunition for more than a 
hundred years of political strife and acrimonious debate, 
took a back seat, even in the mind of its greatest cham- 


59 


pion, when it ran up against the toy bank in the home. 


Years ago our great President, Abraham Lincoln, 
in one of his speeches, said: ‘‘Teach economy; that is 
one of the first virtues. It begins with the saving of 
money.’ But even before that Andrew Jackson, the 
great fighting President, had given the youth of Amer- 
ica this advice: ‘Save your money and thrive, or pay 
the price.in poverty and disgrace.’’ In fact our very 
birth as a nation seemed to teach the lesson of thrift. 
Our own immortal George Washington, the ‘Father 
of our Country,” tried to start the young republic off 
right, for he said: ‘‘Economy makes happy homes and 
sound nations; instill it deep.”” Then came Thomas 
Jefferson, who wrote the immortal Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, who in the maturity of his life of usefulness 
sent a letter to a young man who had just been elected 
president of one of the great colleges of Virginia, in 
which he said, “Save and teach all you are interested 
in to save; thus pave the way for moral and material 
success.’’ Coming back to our time;*few Presidents 
have had more to do with shaping the destiny of this 
country than had the great Rough Rider, Theodore 
Roosevelt. Mr. Roosevelt was the father of the conserva- 
tion movement which saved millions of acres of forest 
lands from despoliation. He built great dams and 
reservoirs which have irrigated millions of acres of desert 
land and made them to blossom like the rose. What, 
then, had he to say on this subject? ‘‘Extravagance rots 
character; train the youth away from it. On the other 
hand, the habit of saving money, while it stiffens the 
will, also brightens the energies. If you would be sure 
that you are beginning right, begin to save money.” 

While President, Mr. Roosevelt did more for the pres- 
ervation of bird and animal life than any other Presi- 
dent ever did. He set aside great areas as bird sanctu- 


60 


aries and bird reservations, where they might not only 
breed in peace but live under the protecting arm of 
Uncle Sam himself. 

Mr. Roosevelt never lost his interest in life about him 
and the very last book that he read just before he died 
was a volume of 250,000 words written by William 
Beebe of the New York Zoological Park. 


What Great Statesmen Have Said. 


William E. Gladstone, preeminent among men, 
statesmen, and scholars, said: ‘‘Economy is near the 
keystone of character and success. A boy that is taught 
to save his money will rarely be a bad man or a failure; 
the man who saves will rise in his trade or profession 
steadily; this is inevitable.”’ No man has done more 
to influence the youth of America along the line of thrift 
and economy than the great demonstrator of the fact 
that lightning is electricity and can be handled and 
made to serve all the wants of a civilized people. Frank- 
lin’s ‘“‘Autobiography” is even today a great factor in 
molding the character of the youth of America. What 
he had to say to one of his young apprentices has a 
direct appeal to every youth.in the land today, and 
should be taken home as a personal admonition: ‘“‘Save, 
young man, become respectable and respected; it’s 
the quickest and surest way.’’ Henry Clay was one 
of the great statesmen of our country, and his admoni- 
tions are as live and vital today as they were when 
given. In addressing an audience of his constituents 
he made this personal appeal: ‘‘Men of the South, 
save. We must learn this lesson, for that economy 
which so stiffens the North and stimulates its indus- 
tries will do the same for us, making our progress sound 
-and sure.” 


61 


What the World’s Greatest Merchants Say. 


John Wanamaker and Marshall Field immediately 
come to mind when we think of great merchants. It is 
then only natural that we should consult them if we 
would learn the secret of success as they found it. Mr. 
Wanamaker has repeatedly said: ‘‘The difference 
between the clerk who spends all his salary and a clerk 
who saves a part of it is the difference—in ten years— 
between the owner of a business and the man out of a 
job.” 

Marshall Field’s Analysis. 


If you want to succeed, save. This is true, not only because 
of the value of the money which the young man who saves 
accumulates, but because of the infinitely greater value of the 
system and organization which the practice of saving introduces 
into his life. This result of the saving habit is not generally 
nor properly appreciated. I consider it to be almost the great- 
est element in making for a young man’s success. In the first 
place, thrift creates determination in all who practice it; this at 
the start. Then it develops steady purpose; then sustained 
energy. Soon it produces alert, discriminating intelligence. 
These all rapidly grow into an ability that enables the saver to 
take the money he has accumulated (even though small in 
amount) and employ it with profit. Better and better returns 
follow upon his industry, ability, and judgment and to his cap- 
ital—now steadily increasing. Soon he is secure—and that 
comparatively early in life; and each day widens the gulf be- 
tween him and improvidence and its invariable companion, 
incompetence. This is the real framework of the structure of 
success. Each of its supports, it will be invariably found, 
rests upon a foundation stone of an early dollar saved. 


The Culmination. 

The doctrine of saving and economizing, learning 
the blessing that the habit of thrift bestows upon those - 
who practice it, has now become a great national 
problem. Yes, it is international. Every country 
in the civilized world is either directly or indirectly 


62 


teaching its citizens how to better conserve nature’s 
blessing and to extract more and more from the works 
of man. It is already estimated that 30,000,000 of 
our citizens have invested in Thrift Savings. Great 
Britain and Canada are also using the Thrift Stamp 
as a means of financing the war and enlisting the people’s 
hearty support in the cause for which we fought. 


Money and the War. 


When Uncle Sam needed money, and needed it in a 
hurry, where did he go to get it? The Liberty Loans 
showed that the people not only were ready, but willing 
to finance this great venture. What have already been 
the results of the efforts to have the people finance the 
war? It has given strength and unanimity to the Na- 
tional Government itself. That appeal has gone even 
to the children.: 


The Power of Money Saved. 


Half a dozen nail makers, who had saved a little 
of the money that they earned, determined to go into 
business for themselves. They did. The company the 
nail makers started is a $25,000,000 corporation today 
and is known as the La Belle Iron Company of Steuben- 
ville, Ohio. 

Twenty-eight poor weavers of Great Britain, with a 
total capital of $140, started a cooperative store. Today 
that store has grown into the Cooperative Society of 
Great Britain and Ireland, which has 3,500,000 members 
and a capital stock of $250,000,000. 


Food Won the War. 


‘We secured the allegiance to this national service 
in our 20,000,000 kitchens, our 20,000,000 breakfast, 
lunch, and dinner tables; we multiplied an ounce of 
sugar, or fats, or what not per day by 100,000,000 peo- 


63 


ple, we saved 180,000,000 pounds in a month. We 
saved a pound of flour per week, we saved 125,000,- 
000 bushels of wheat per annum. It was this multiplica- 
tion of minute quantities—teaspoons full—slices, scraps 
—by 100,000,000 and 365 days that saved the world. 
Is not our right to life and freedom worth that service?” 

“There are other features of food conservation of 
national importance. One of them lies in the whole 
problem of national saving. Wars are paid for out of 
the savings of a people. However we meet that expendi- 
ture it will have to be paid for some day from our sav- 
ings. The savings of a people lie in the conservation 
of commodities and the savings of productive labor. 
When we reduced the consumption of the necessary 
commodities in this country to a point where our la- 
borers turned to the production of war materials; when 
we secured that balance and got to the point where 
we freed our men for the Army, then it was that we 
solved one of the most important economic problems 
of the war. 7 

The Final Goal. 


Scientists have for centuries observed that there are 
two forces struggling for the possession of the earth. 
One of these great contending armies is headed, 
marshalled, and recruited by man; the enemy is made 
up of millions, yea, ten billion trillion armies of insects, 
bugs, germs, and microbes, with gnats, fleas, flies, and 
all the trained aviators that harrass us from the heavens 
above, while the seas are teeming with submarine 
enemies more wonderfully made than was ever dreamed 
possible by the ingenuity of man. It’s the human 
race against the world of living things about us, and in 
this conflict all agree that if it were not for our little 
feathered friends the conflict would be over in fifteen 
years and the human race would be extinct. 

64 


Close to Nature 


Through the meadows green I wander, 
Mid the clover, pink and white, 
On the hillside over yonder, 
‘Til my soul's filled with delight. 
And I hear a song-bird singing, 
Perched upon some golden-rod— 
When a fellow’s close to Nature, 
He's not far away from God. 


Where the honey bees are sipping 
From the blossoms on the stem, 
And the mocking birds are trilling, 
Far from the haunts of men, 
I can hear all Nature calling 
Where the wild flowers bend and nod 
If a fellow's close to Nature, 
He's not far away from God. 


I can sit just sort of dreaming, 
While I listen to the trees, 

With their foliage all a-gleaming, 
As it flutters in the breeze. 

Where the sunlight and the shadows 
Are all mingled o'er the sod— 

When a fellow’'s close to Nature, 
He's not far away from God. 


I can hear the reapers rattle 
In the far-off fields of grain, 
And the lowing of the cattle, 
Wending homeward through the lane. 
All these scenes and sounds remind me 
Of this saying, true but odd, 
When a fellow’s close to Nature, 
He's not far away from God. 


—TOM J. NICHOLL. 


3 0112 072765818 


Life’s Balance Sheet 


Statistics show that out of each 
100 young men twenty-five years old, 
fifty-four will be dependent upon 
friends, relatives or charity at sixty- 
five years of age. 


36 will have died 


Of 1 will be rich 


the. | 4 will be wealthy 
100 | 5 will be supporting them- 


selves by work 
54 will be dependent 


Nature is our greatest teacher and experience 
is a close second. If we can’t learn from these 
two masters we must paya dear price for our 
stupidity. 


